Related Stories

The number of Seattle police use-of-force cases has declined, less than 3 percent of overall arrests involved force, and less than 1 percent of those force cases ended with major injuries, according to a department report examining statistics from 2006 through 2009.

However, critics of the department say there are still problems with officers' uses of force, specifically those shown in high-profile videotaped incidents. The event that has drawn the most criticism is the fatal Aug. 30, 2010, shooting of John T. Williams. The department firearms review board found the shooting wasn't justified and Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer said most of the actions done by former officer Ian Birk that day were not in accordance with his training.

"I'm not sure the union yet understands the nature and the severity of the problem," Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said during his State of the City address, regarding the climate that led to nearly three-dozen organizations asking for a federal review of the police department.

The report was completed roughly two weeks before the Williams shooting, but a department spokesman said it wasn't released because it didn't seem appropriate because of high-profile incidents at the time.

In May, Detective Shandy Cobane and another officer were videotaped stomping on a man, and Cobane said he would "beat the (expletive) Mexican piss out of him." He was not charged. In June, an officer made headlines after he punched a confrontational girl in the face. The girl was charged with assault, apologized, and the officer was cleared of wrongdoing.

Seattle police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said use-of-force statistics for 2010 have not been compiled. Here are some of the findings in the department's 2006-2009 report:

In Seattle, the use-of-force rate has declined over the past three years going from 0.18 percent in 2006 to 0.12 percent in 2009. This is less than one-fifth of the national rate.

In Seattle, the rate of force use relative to arrests went from 3.3 percent in 2006 to 2.4 percent in 2009. This means that Seattle police officers accomplish arrests without any use of force over 97 percent of the time.

In Seattle in 2009, officers used their own bodies (i.e., hits, kicks, etc.) in 78 percent of use of force incidents and used firearms in 0.6 percent of such incidents.

In Seattle, 6.3 percent of use-of-force subjects suffer injuries, with major injuries limited to 0.8 percent of the subjects. Most use of force subjects in Seattle suffer either no injuries (31 percent) or minor injuries such as scrapes or scratches (62 percent).

In Seattle, for the four-year period of 2006-2009, complaints were received in just over 10 percent of use of force incidents. That is lower than the national average.

At packed meeting about police accountability last month at City Hall, panelist Tim Burgess -- a former police officer and head of the City Council's public safety committee -- said while Seattle officers use force much less than the national rate, there is clearly something wrong with police relations.

Late last year, the American Civil Liberties Union and 34 other organizations called for the federal government to investigate whether there is a pattern and practice of civil rights violations by Seattle police in violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal law.

But in the report, police say a major area of public confusion concerning officer use of force "is the notion that force is only appropriate if officers progress through escalating levels of force until they match what a suspect is doing."

But officers -- in Seattle and nationwide -- are trained that action beats reaction.

"To put it bluntly, officers are trained to fight to win," the report states. "Instead officers are trained to take appropriate action to bring a situation under control as quickly as possible in order to minimize the risk of harm to everyone. There is no matching of action/reaction, and no requirement to try varying levels of force. Instead officers are expected to use judgment to determine how best to resolve the situation before them, always with the goal of gaining control as quickly as possible.

"If, for example, an incident justifies the use of deadly force, officers are not required to try other options first, nor are they expected to 'shoot to wound.' Similarly, officers are not expected to 'duke it out' with combative subjects who are unarmed in preference to using other tools that may be available to them, such as OC spray or Tasers.

"The subject's actions will dictate an officer's response, but rather than trying to match what the subject is doing, the officer is expected to assert control of the situation as quickly and effectively as possible."